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The air everywhere is full of mould spores, they are not normally a problem, until they find a damp place to land. Once in place, as long as they are damp, they will grow, mature and produce more spores. If the location dries out, then they die. The typical reveal is an ideal place for...

You are quite right compared to the rest of the room, window frames are small in area, but you could think of a room where they can still amount to a lot. It doesn't end with just the frames because the total area equals the reveals plus the window frames plus the window cills as they are...

Woody, the next time there is a heavy frost, take a look, you will find that on the area close to the window frame the frost has melted and two or three inches out the frost is still there. Its nothing to do with the plastic, merely that the heat is being transferred from inside the home to the...

Windows are the weak point of a room, I find that modern plastic window frames leak heat in a most undesirable way. Just take a look at your outside window sill on a frosty morning, you will see that the frost on the cill has melted up to about 3 inches from the window frame. Useless. Knock...

You need to establish if the pipes are blocked. Disconnect the hot pipe from each radiator in turn, open the valve and see if water comes out. If you have 8mm pipes, someone may have kinked one or more, that has enabled a blockage, sometimes emptying the system and letting mains water run...

Under normal conditions on a pressurised system 8mm pipe will deliver 4.5kW and 10mm 7.3kW. Is this enough for your radiator sizes? The heat loss for these pipes is minimal. But, are they insulated? I have used them insulated over 53 feet without noticeable heat loss. First open the air vent...

I had hoped that you had resolved the question of, is the wall damp, as it is almost a month since your first enquiry. If the wall is damp, you need to find out why. If there is a problem with the damp course, then the damp will rise to about 4 feet from ground level. Take a look outside and...

I have never used that product, so cannot comment. What I would recommend is a combined PIR Thermal Insulation from Celotex PL3000, this will stop around 90% of your heat going through the walls. Take a look, the other stuff is merely aluminium foil with a very thin polystyrene backing.

Fires require a warm chimney to burn properly. A chimney that is not inside the insulated fabric of the home, will be cold and therefore, difficult to light and it will probably not burn slowly without smoking. A central chimney will disburse its heat all round into every room. One thats part...

Over the past years, ideas regarding what is right have moved on considerably. Whereas years ago builders had no materials that were waterproof and homes were built with things like tiles, slates and bricks that merely shed water, nowadays there are many things available that are waterproof...

There is some good advice here, especially about using a green house to dry the clothes, my wife uses ours the whole year round for drying clothes and growing things, its so much cheaper that using a clothes dryer, where we live its 4 months winter and 8 months rain. Condensation is a life...

It is possible that its an old box that has been reused. When you write that there is damp as per a damp meter, what % of damp is there? All walls are damp to a degree and usually it does no harm, however where damp comes into contact with wood, paper, leather etc these things will soon be...

Almost a month has passed since your first post, so I imagine that the wall is dry, therefore just cut the old dpm off. Do consider using wet plaster, as plasterboard can act as a refrigerator if there are holes in the wall, cold air can circulate behind the boards and make the room cold.

When I looked at this some six months ago, it cost us about 7p to have a shower. running a bowl of water hardly registered, when multiplied over a year it wasn't worth it. It, would be worn out and need replacing long before it will pay for its self. However, since then I've collected a pile...

JohnD - Uncontrolled ventilation costs money.

JohnD, this stupid idea, soaks up the humidity in a room and raises it temperature, dry air is also cheaper to heat, it also avoids the heat loss associated with a hole in the wall, ventilation yes, but uncontrolled ventilation no. If you take the time to study the result of fitting a hole in a...

Freddie, no. I became interested in insulation some years ago, when I discovered closed cell insulation, I saw the benefits and gutted my first house, lining the walls and ceilings with inch thick polystyrene, glued to the walls to avoid breaks in the insulation. It worked very well indeed...

As I wrote earlier, spray the foam between the joists. That is to say, not under the tiles or slates (see Welsh Brickie and his problem) nor blocking the eves. Thanks for the comment. As a matter of fact, most damage to the woodwork in lofts is due to the water vapour rising from the inside...

Thermo, please explain?

Breezer, I did not write, spray under the tiles or slates. But, between the joists over the plaster board ceiling. Please write and advise everyone, why you think/know this is wrong. Perry